Prevalence of affective alterations : depression and anxiety in the salvadoran population

Abstract

The aim of this article is to establish the prevalence of affective disorders: depression and anxiety. It also pretends to determine the incidence of psychopathological disorders in salvadorean population. With all this, it pretends to collect indicators of mental health status of the salvadorean people. World Health Organization (WHO) define mental health as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”. The research was conducted with an ex post fact retrospective design with a stratified sample representing the country. The information was collected using the General Health Questionnaire 28 (GHQ-28) because it has the adequate psychometrics qualities to measure those variables. The results showed that the arithmetic media in all the indicators are higher in women than men. In 12 items there are significant differences, indicating that there is a higher prevalence in psychopathology in women than men. Results also show there are significant differences in prevalence of general psychopathic when comparing age, family status, region of residence, educational level, working, economic income, labor activity.